Peggy Boyle sat in the day room of the non-violent ward at St. Elizabeth's Psychiatric Hospital, wringing her hands and weighing her options for the afternoon. She could play 500 rummy with her friends Leslie and Jackie until an argument started. She could write a letter to one of her sons and ask for some cigarette money. Or she could just sit and let the silent storm of voices beat away at her brain. Nobody on the ward seemed as ill as Peggy did. She looked like someone who belonged at St. E's. Nervously primping her hair and smoothing her clothes consumed much of her time. Often she opened her mouth to scream - but knew best to suppress it. In all her years on the ward, in and out, she had learned not to open up to any of the doctors about her mental state. She was afraid to tell them anything at all - the wrong words might send her to shock treatment again. That, she feared above all else.

Peggy first got a dose of electricity in 1942. Everyone in those days was talking about the bombs going off in Europe and the Pacific. What about the explosive thoughts in my head, she had inquired at the time. But the world had its priorities, and so they gave Peggy the juice, which shut her up but good. There was nothing worse in the world than shock treatment. It scrambled your brain. It was hard to form a thought. No human being should have to endure it. Yes, it worked - but only for a while. Couldn't they at least have knocked her out before they gave it to her? That seemed sensible. But that's not how they did it. It was 1956 now, and supposedly they administered it more humanely. But Peggy had learned to mistrust anyone in a white coat. It was primal to her, the way a prey animal freezes, or a child dreads the neighborhood bully.

Peggy got a light for her cigarette from the shift nurse and walked over to Eightball the parrot. He was worth a daily visit. The blue and yellow bird had large white cheek patches that blushed pink when any of the women came near him. Then his head would trace a slow figure-eight pattern in the air. Eightball seemed smitten with all the ladies of the ward. It seemed cruel to keep a bird from flying, thought Peggy, but he was truly appreciated for his sacrifice. From across the room, Leslie held up a deck of cards for Peggy to see.

"Are you in?"

"Not today," answered Peggy.

"Huh?"

"Not today!" Peggy amplified her response. Her natural talking voice was small and people often asked her to speak up. Peggy felt as if she were shouting rudely sometimes in order to be heard, but evidently that was just normal speaking volume for the rest of the world. There was Peggy's tiny voice, and then there was the silent storm of her voices. If the chaplin ever knew what filled up her mind! There were the white coats to be feared, but equally so, the men in black. When she first started having problems, so long ago, she went screaming to Reverend Franklin at The Assembly of God. She told him freely about the voices invading her mind. He listened to her story, and after careful consideration, told her that she was possessed by demons. Demons! The idea still made her cringe. Only the Almighty could save her now, she was told. But He chose not to. That seemed obvious, after all these years. Peggy's options were limited. Jesus or the juice - was that the best the world could offer her?

After lunch, she could watch The Guiding Light and Search for Tomorrow. That would require jockeying for a decent seat in front of that tiny television screen. Sometimes it just wasn't worth the trouble. She had plants to tend each day. That was her job. The kitchen staff had tried her at meal prep, but she worked too slowly. So watering plants it was. Then there was psychodrama at 2:00. What a farce that was.

"Miss Peggy, Dr. Patel would like to see you in his office," said the shift nurse. Peggy went through a ritual of primping her hair and smoothing her clothes until at last she rose from her chair. She dreaded talking to doctors and had to force herself down the hallway to Patel's office.

"Close the door behind you, please," said Patel. He was a slim, dark man with a very good head of hair. Almost like Elvis. His accent made him difficult to understand, but his voice was musical. "Mrs. Boyle, it hasn't been easy to develop a treatment plan for you. You don't talk much, and you certainly don't share your thoughts and feelings with anyone. There's a new pill out that might help you. I don't know if you're a good candidate for the pill because we know so little about you. If there's anything you can tell me, right here, that you think might be helpful for us to know, it might go a long way toward getting you a better treatment plan.

"I..don't..hear..voices," said Peggy. This was the automatic response she had repeated so many times in the past. She relied on it to keep her from getting shock treatment.

"Yes, you've said that before. Surely you've noticed how many people have left the ward in the last six months. It's all due to this pill. Some might call it a miracle drug. I would just say it's very, very effective at silencing voices. If that's something you think would benefit you..."

"I don't hear voices."

"Well, that's all, then, for now." Peggy went back to the day room. Sure, she had heard of this new pill: Thorazine. A couple of her old friends on the ward were back in their communities because of it. But she had a longtime policy about talking to doctors. Don't tell them nothing.

Peggy managed to get a decent seat for the soaps and thought about what Patel had to say. Could this miracle pill help her? Her thoughts drifted to the story before her. TV was a little like a sedative. It could take your mind off your own worries, fretting about the lives of the characters in her stories. Jo Gardner on Search for Tomorrow was her favorite. She sure sold a lot of Joy liquid for the sponsors. Joy in a bottle. It was false advertising as far as Peggy was concerned. But then, maybe this Thorazine was joy in a bottle.

A few months passed and Peggy watched five girls leave the ward, all because of Thorazine. It seemed like a miracle drug. But was it right for her? She watered her plants each day and watched her stories and thought about Thorazine. Thought about it all the time. It would be nice to get some peace. She hadn't known much of it since she was twenty-six. That was 1939. She had a nervous breakdown when her husband left. There were two growing boys to feed. She had to give them up to St. Anthony's orphanage. They grew up to be fine young men, but they resented her. Mental illness was a double curse: there was the suffering and incapacity, and then there was the inevitable fallout with family.

Another month went by and two more girls left the ward. Peggy had thought about it so much. It was time to talk to Patel. She stepped into his office, closed the door, and sat down. He lit a cigarette and offered one to Peggy.

"So, what are we here for? Have you something to tell me?"

"I'm here because...I do...hear voices." Her cigarette twitched in her hand.

"Okay. Well, thank you for your courage, Mrs. Boyle. I know that was hard for you to say." He asked her several more questions about her voices and she answered them.

"Mrs. Boyle, I have enough information here to start you on Thorazine tonight."

"Good. I hope."

"Yes, so do I. It hasn't worked for everyone, you should know. But its success rate is pretty high so far."

Peggy left Patel's office with a feeling she hadn't known in a long time: hope. She was actually excited, couldn't wait to get her first dose of Thorazine that evening. It didn't work right away, she knew that. Some girls felt better in a few days. Some took a couple weeks. Some needed their dosage increased before it started to work. She had plenty of time. She had waited seventeen years for something like this. In and out of St. E's, in and out. She would be so very happy to get out for good.

After her first dose of Thorazine that evening, Peggy felt like she had been given a sedative. She felt like a sack of flour. The side-effects were well known, and supposedly would diminish in time. The next morning, there were no changes that she could tell. Her head was still full of the usual crap. Her body was limp from the sedation. She asked to stay in bed all day and the nurse let her. On the second day, she wanted to remain in bed again, but Patel wanted her to get up and move around some. So she did. Three more days passed, and Peggy was disheartened that there had been no change. Patel told her not to worry, she may need a higher dose to see any benefit. But Peggy was worried.

On the sixth day, she awoke to something very strange. Her arms and legs had tightened up. She limped down the hallway to the day room; her right foot dragged behind her. Again, Patel assuaged her concerns. It was a side-effect of the Thorazine. There was a pill he could give her to counter the rigidity she experienced. This was almost getting to be more trouble than it's worth, thought Peggy. But she took the side-effect pill and hobbled into the day room.

Peggy fell asleep in a chair while watching her stories. The shift nurse woke her up and she found her vision blinkered. But that sliver in front of her was so wonderful! She got up and touched everything along the walls. The metal grates covering the window panes. All twelve months of the calendar. The leaves of her plants. She traced the stapled path of the cord that lowered from the clock into the electrical outlet. Finally she went over to Eightball and stroked his long blue tail feathers. His cheek patches flashed pink.

Leslie and Jackie, the girls she played cards with, came over to her.

"Peggy, do you know where you are?" asked Leslie.

"Sure," said Peggy.

"Where?"

"Woodward and Lothrop's department store."

"Jackie, go get the shift nurse," said Leslie. Peggy was led into Patel's office again.

"I need to give her an injection of antilirium," he told the shift nurse. He wrote out a script and waited for its delivery. When Patel started to give her the drug, she snapped out of it almost immediately.

"Do you know where you're at, Mrs. Boyle?"

"I'm in your office. But why do you have a needle in my arm?"

"You had a bad reaction to the Cogentin. It doesn't happen very often. In fact, I've only seen it once before. And not in the way you experienced it. You seem to be coming around nicely, though. We'll watch you closely the next few days, but I think you'll be fine.

"Fine?"

"Well, no more atropinic crisis. And no more limping. But also, no more Thorazine. I'm sorry, it's just not the right medication for you. However, they're working on others that may have fewer side-effects. I promise, you'll be a candidate when they become available.

"Oh." Peggy felt like a child who got up Christmas morning and found nothing under the tree. She walked into the day room and watched The Secret Storm to take her mind off her disappointment. It wasn't her favorite soap opera. Anacin was the sponsor. The commercial featured an animation of what went on inside a person's head. There was a mallet, pounding again and again. And a pulsing, zig-zagged line that represented tension. Anacin wiped them both away. If only. Peggy felt hopeless. Her dark days would go on and on, perhaps until she died. That became her last hope. An early death. A way out of this world.

* * * *

Peggy developed lung cancer in the fall of 1960. All that smoking made her mortal wish come true. At last, her plight would be over with, she thought. No more silent storm. She feared the pain to come. They gave her barbiturates and drained her lungs of fluid every day, but she suffered a great deal. Life gave her a severe going over, right up to the very end.

Her sons split a $5,000 life insurance policy. Though they got off to a good start as adults, both turned into alcoholics and wife-beaters. And their children, in turn, were mostly drug addicts and depressives. The world was determined to make everything in Peggy's life miserable. Even that of her children, and her children's children. There's no end to the misery in some lives. No end.